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Help:Congresspedia Voting Record Resource Center

From OpenCongress Wiki

Welcome to the Congresspedia Voting Record Resource Center. Here you'll find instructions and guidance on how to add information on a senator or representative's voting record to their Congresspedia profile. You can find links to each lawmaker's profile here.

Easy and ready-to-go voting record additions

These are links to instruction pages on Congresspedia created to make it easy to add information to any member of Congress' voting record with no further research. Feel free to create such a page and add it to this list. If you need help, contact Conor Kenny, managing editor of Congresspedia.

Immigration

Project:Votes on immigration reform - Focuses on recent votes on immigration policy. It currently features on two Senate votes that provide paths to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

Healthcare

Project:Record on SCHIP - Focuses on votes on legislation to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program. It currently features four votes in the House of Representatives to versions of the bill that were steadily pruned back to overcome objections of enough representatives to overcome President George W. Bush's veto of the bill.

Further information and instructions on voting records

Creating text to insert into Congresspedia

When creating a ready-to-go voting record project like the ones above or when simply adding information on a vote to a member of Congress' profile, make sure to follow the ground rules, especially the rules to provide an external, verifiable source and to keep your descriptions "fair and accurate." This essentially means that you should describe a vote or a bill in sober language without any polemics or rhetorical flourishes. It is often helpful to include which organizations supported or opposed a bill to give readers, no matter their ideological leanings, a complete picture. However, "fair and accurate" also means that additions should be free of misinformation or spin, even if it is put out by a "mainstream" source. Basically, apply the smell test (any bull in there?) and you'll be fine.

Places to find information on voting records

These are links to external voting scorecards that feature specific votes and how each senator or representative voted. Because the votes are generally selected by experts in their area, these are often the best places to distinguish the key votes on issues out of the thousands made by Congress every year. Linking to the SourceWatch profiles on the organizations that put these scorecards out helps give such vital contextual information as who funds the organization and what its agenda is.

Progressive/populist; broad focus: economic, government reform and environmental issues. Focuses on "bills that would have a significant impact (positive or negative) on the squeezed middle class, as well as on the aspirations of low-income Americans who want to work their way into the middle class." Specifically, legislation that impacts the ability to obtain "a secure job, the opportunity to own a home, access to health care, retirement security, time off for vacation, illness and the birth or adoption of a child, opportunities to save for the future and the ability to provide a good education, including a college education, for one’s children."[1]

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